Sex abuse victim's challenge

The woman at the centre of allegations that the Governor-General mishandled child-sex abuse claims yesterday challenged Prime Minister John Howard to look at these photographs.

This is the woman, aged 14, when as a schoolgirl she boarded at an Anglican Church hostel in the central New South Wales town of Forbes in the mid-1950s.

And this is retired bishop Donald Shearman, then a married priest of 27 and warden of the hostel, who has admitted he had a sexual relationship with the under-age girl.

"I want John Howard to look hard at these pictures," the woman said in a statement to The Age.

"I want him to think of how, back in 1995, that priest admitted his illegal abuse of me, of how he crucified me, to Peter Hollingworth in my presence, and the archbishop did nothing, absolutely nothing, about it; Peter Hollingworth simply did not care.

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"Then John Howard might remember how just last week, his Governor-General went on national television to more or less call me a slut, claiming that I, a little schoolgirl, had somehow waylaid his innocent priest."

Under fire for allowing Bishop Shearman to continue preaching after learning of the abuse at a mediation session in 1995, Dr Hollingworth told the ABC's Australian Story last week that he did not believe the girl had been abused, "rather, it was the other way round".

His comments deepened the crisis surrounding his position as governor-general, fuelling widespread calls for his resignation and a decision by child-sex abuse advocacy groups to dump him as patron.

After crisis talks instigated by Mr Howard, Dr Hollingworth publicly apologised twice to the woman, saying he thought the question asked of him on Australian Story referred to a subsequent adult relationship between the woman and the priest that began 20 years after the initial abuse.

The woman yesterday labelled this explanation from Dr Hollingworth as an "unmitigated untruth".

As well as releasing the photographs, she also released a letter she wrote to Dr Hollingworth in 1995 that clearly detailed how Shearman's abuse had ruined her life.

"I was a schoolgirl, a minor in his care, and he chose to betray every last vestige of decency - including the gross violation of his professional responsibilities," the letter said.

"I can't begin to list the damage done to me - a schoolgirl destroyed by a priest ... followed by 40 fractured years of victimisation and torment with all the devastating consequences that entails."

She said yesterday she felt she had to speak out because the Governor-General had "seriously misled" the public with the apology; he had not bothered to apologise to her personally; and because she was "sickened by the pious bleatings of Peter Hollingworth's apologists" and those claiming that a "lynch mob" was hounding him.

She wants the Queen, who opens the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on the Sunshine Coast tomorrow, to "quietly advise Peter Hollingworth that he should think about what his occupation of the office is doing to its reputation".

"Is someone who tells unmitigated untruths to the Australian people a fit person to be their governor-general?" she asked.

"I have been waiting nine days for his supposedly heartfelt apology to be conveyed to me, but I have heard nothing, yet he knows where to find me."

Dr Hollingworth's spokesman said on Monday that the Governor-General was "endeavouring" to contact the woman. The spokesman did not return calls yesterday.

In other developments yesterday:

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists sent a "please explain" letter to Dr Hollingworth which included nine specific questions and a threat to dump him as patron.

"We are particularly concerned about comments attributed to you which suggest that you failed to report to authorities instances in which there were suggestions of child abuse; that you regarded the actions of a 14-year-old girl to be predatory ... and that you displayed a lack of understanding and compassion for the effect of sexual abuse on children and young people," the college's letter said.

The Australian Secondary Principals Association refused to back a plan by the Australian Education Union to ban Dr Hollingworth from visiting state schools. In calling for the ban, AEU federal president Denis Fitzgerald said Dr Hollingworth's statements on child sexual abuse could affect the 2.2 million public school students.